CELEBRITY
Lionel Messi set to leave PSG at end of season
Lionel Messi is “much more likely” to leave Paris Saint-Germain at the end of the season than sign a new deal, a source close to the club told AFP on Tuesday.
“The dynamics have completely changed with PSG less pushing to renew (his contract),” the source said.
He added that there was “no deal, no exit yet. But exit is much more likely”.
French newspaper L’Equipe reported that the split looks set to happen, unless he unexpectedly agrees to a pay cut.
Messi, who will turn 36 in June, joined in 2021 on a two-year deal which expires at the end of this campaign.
He led Argentina to World Cup in Qatar last December.
On Sunday, he was jeered by some PSG fans as the teams were announced before the 1-0 home defeat by Lyon.
Supporters of the Qatar-owned club are unhappy at the malaise around the team since they were eliminated from the Champions League in the last 16 by Bayern Munich in March.
“The fans have changed things completely,” the source said of the chances of Messi’s deal being renewed.
He has scored 29 goals and set up 32 more in 67 appearances for PSG in all competitions.
Barcelona have been openly courting Messi, hoping to persuade the Argentinian to return to Nou Camp.
He had left the club two years ago, after winning four Champions League titles with them.
“I would love it if he returned,” Barca vice-president Rafael Yuste said last week.
Yuste also admitted he had been in “contact” with Messi.
The superstar has also been linked with a possible move to Major League Soccer, where Inter Miami are said to be interested in signing him.
– AFP
CELEBRITY
Lionel Messi set to hang boots
Inter Miami will be the last club Argentina captain Lionel Messi plays for, the 36-year-old forward said on Wednesday, adding he feels “a little bit scared” at the thought of the day he decides to retire.
Messi, a World Cup winner with Argentina in 2022, has a contract with the Major League Soccer side until 2025 following his arrival last summer after a spell with French champions Paris St Germain.
“Inter Miami will be my last club. I love playing football. I enjoy everything even more because I am aware that there is less and less left,” Messi told ESPN.
“I’m not ready to leave football. I’ve done this all my life, I love playing football, I enjoy training, the day-to-day, the matches… And yes, there’s always a little bit of fear that it’s all over.”
The eight-time Ballon d’Or winner Messi is preparing with his national team to defend their Copa America title, with the tournament kicking off on June 20 in the United States.
Argentina will take on Canada in the opening match before facing Group A rivals Chile on June 25 and Peru four days later.
-Reuters
CELEBRITY
Bidding opens for Messi napkin that defined soccer great’s career
Bidding began on Wednesday for a napkin on which soccer club Barcelona penned a promise to sign a 13-year-old Lionel Messi – who went on to become one of the game’s greatest players – with early bids reaching almost $300,000.
The napkin was signed in December 2000 when Carles Rexach, then Barcelona’s sporting director, agreed with agent Horacio Gaggioli to recruit the Argentine teenager who went on to become the club’s all-time top scorer.
Bidding for the document, described by auction house Bonhams as “blue ink on a standard Spanish waxy napkin,” was at 220,000 pounds ($274,824.00) shortly after the sale opened, according to the auctioneer’s website.
The online sale closes on May 17 and has a guide price of between 300,000 and 500,000 pounds.
“It was never legally binding, but emotionally it represents the deep link or the beginning of the deep link, that Messi had with Barcelona,” said Bonhams Chief Marketing Officer Marc Sands.
Messi helped Barcelona win 35 titles, making a record 782 appearances and scoring 674 goals. Messi left Barcelona in 2021 and now plays for Inter Miami.
“If you love football, you’ll know all about Lionel Messi and you will know that he defined football for generations. If you want a slice of that action, this is the thing to get,” Sands said.
-Reuters
CELEBRITY
Maradona’s children wants body exhumed
Diego Maradona’s children filed a request with the Argentine Courts on Thursday to move the former football great’s body “to a much safer place” and for fans “to pay tribute” in a mausoleum.
Maradona’s remains lie in a private cemetery on the outskirts of Buenos Aires where he was carried in November 2020 in a massive funeral procession. Only family members are allowed to enter the cemetery.
The mausoleum, called “Memorial del Diez,” is located behind the Casa Rosada, the seat of the executive branch of the Argentine government, and will be open to the public, Veronica Ojeda, mother of Maradona’s youngest son, told local media.
“All the heirs request by common agreement to authorise the transfer to his next destination of eternal rest (…) in a much safer place than the current one,” said the note presented to the court signed by Dalma and Gianinna Maradona, and Ojeda on behalf of Diego Maradona Jr.
“And so that all the Argentine people and the citizens of the world can pay homage to our father who was the greatest Argentine idol.”
The relocation will take place around Oct. 30, the birth date of the 1986 World Cup winner with Argentina, one of the family’s lawyers told reporters.
Maradona died at age 60 in November 2020 from a heart attack. Fans of Napoli and of the Argentine national team worshipped him as the “god of football.”
-Reuters
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